rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 2007
Directed by D.J. Caruso; produced by Jackie Marcus, Joe Medjuck, E. Bennett Walsh; written by Christopher Landon, Carl Ellsworth
Starring Shia LeBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Aaron Yoo, Jose Pablo Cantillo
The final act of 'Disturbia' is so bad at almost destroys the entire film. Almost, fortunately, since everything leading up to it is pretty entertaining. It takes some time before this film really turns into a thriller, although there are the usual shocks. The characters are introduced and the situations they are in are slowly established. You would almost forget that the film started with a terrible, and admittedly effectively shocking, car accident.
Kale (Shia LeBeouf) loses his father in the accident and a remark about it by his Spanish teacher, already one year later, makes him snap. He hits the teacher; I would not blame him. He is sentenced to three months house arrest, with one of those bracelets, warning the police if you move more than 100 feet away from your house, around his leg. This puts Kale in the James Stewart mode as we saw him in 'Rear Window'. Out of boredom he starts spying on his neighbours, and we watch a long with him. The first who gets his attention is the new girl Ashley (Sarah Roemer). The second is Robert Turner (David Morse), who he slowly starts to suspect of being a murderer. Why and how does not really matter.
As he watches on he befriends Ashley and together they are trying to unravel the mystery they have created for themselves. Also spying along is best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), who has to do the things outside the area Kale can move in. Up to here I liked most of it, but then slowly things started to fall apart. By accident Kale sets his alarm and a police officer, the Spanish teacher's cousin (Jose Pablo Cantillo), arrives. Soon there are five more cars. Later Kale wants the police to come, but the teacher's cousin conveniently finishes his hamburger first, and no five other cars arrive either.
Of course we are already in the final act, which really makes no sense at all. The film was slowly building to a climax and suddenly turns into a 'Scream' kind of film. Stupid scenes like described above, implausible choices by both hero and villain, all with a lot of noise in very dark spaces. It seems the writers had no idea how to finish this film, so they watched some of the worse thrillers and slasher horror films out there, and thought it would be appropriate to do the same. It almost caused me to award this film zero stars, that is really how bad it is. Luckily I was able to think about it for a while and realized in time how I enjoyed the first half or so.